


From the outside in

by Sproings



Series: Extras: Between Their Names [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, M/M, Sam Wilson is a Gift
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-25 09:16:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4954801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sproings/pseuds/Sproings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Companion piece to "Between Their Names"</p>
<p>Sam tries to protect Steve from rushing into a relationship with this Barnes guy.  It goes about as well as you'd expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From the outside in

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not the boss of you, but I strongly suggest that you read [ Between Their Names ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4436879/chapters/10080653) before you read this. It probably won't make a lot of sense, otherwise.

“I think Bucky is joining my knitting class.”

Sam was glad they were on the phone, so Steve wouldn’t see him roll his eyes. Steve was a great guy, and a great friend, but he had a way of making everything seem like a life changing event. “Well, that’s . . . nice?”

“I hope so. Just, it’s been such a long time.”

“Steve, you realize I have no idea who that is, right?”

“Oh. Really? I thought I told you about him. He was my best friend, back in high school. I told you about how he found me behind a dumpster.”

“He what? No, you have definitely not told me this story.”

Steve chuckled. “There was this asshole who liked to hit kids and shove them back there when he was done. So after school I used to go check, in case somebody needed help.”

Sam knew enough of Steve’s experiences as a kid to assume that Steve had first hand experience at being shoved behind that dumpster. Kinda made Sam want to go smack some people, but Steve just chuckled about it like it was normal kid stuff. Because for Steve, it had been.

“Anyway, I really needed to check that day, because that was the same day Henry Kruger had gotten kicked off the football team. It turned out there were empty cans of spray paint in his locker that matched the new graffiti in the library, and he got caught by the Chemistry teacher, Mr. Erskine. Any other teacher would have probably turned a blind eye, because the team was going to State the next week. Mr. Erskine didn’t care at all about sports, though. So Kruger got suspended and kicked off the team. Unfortunately, that meant he was pissed and had lots of free time.”

Sam had his suspicions about how those spray paint cans had been discovered, but he didn’t want to interrupt to confirm them.

“I couldn’t see from behind the dumpster, but I heard footsteps, so I yelled something about how ‘if getting suspended wasn’t enough, I’d be happy to try to get you arrested, too’.”

“Jesus, Steve.”

“What?”

“No, nothing. I should have known you’d have had even less instinct for self-preservation as a kid.” 

“Very funny.”

“I was totally serious,” said Sam.

“Anyway, it turned out not to be Kruger. It was this new kid. Perfect hair, leather jacket, very cool. It was his first day, and everybody already wanted to be his friend, you know? He was pretty surprised to see me.”

“Maybe because you threatened to have him arrested.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Steve said with a laugh. “He looked at me and said, ‘What the hell happened to your face?’ and --”

“Wait, what did happen to your face?”

“I, uh, had a pair of black eyes. From earlier in the day.”

“That Kruger guy?”

“Yeah. So Bucky asked what happened, and I said ‘nothing’ and he said, ‘Well in that case, you’re wearing too much eyeshadow’.”

Sam chuckled. “You bring out the smartass in everyone.”

“I didn’t appreciate it at the time, though. I started to walk off. Then he asked if I knew where Sherman Street was. Said he’d just moved in and didn’t remember the way. It took me two months to figure out he’d lied about that. He had a great sense of direction, I never saw him get lost. When I asked him about it, he said he figured I wouldn’t let him walk me home, otherwise. He was right, too. I wouldn’t have. But by then he was my best friend, the first best friend I’d ever had, and . . . anyway, that’s how I met Bucky.”

“What did he say when he signed up for your class? Did he look you up, or what?”

“He wasn’t the one who called. It was some guy named Barton. Said he got my number from Nick, and asked if there was an opening.”

Nick being Nick Fury, head of the top secret government organization that Natasha worked for. Steve never seemed impressed by that kind of thing, though, which was one of the many reasons Sam admired him. “Well, I guess you can catch up with him at your next class then.”

“Yeah!” said Steve. “It’ll be great.”

* * *

Seemed like it didn’t turn out so great. Steve called on Tuesday night, saying he ‘just wanted to talk’ and asking very transparent questions about whether Sam remembered his friends from high school. Sam tried to help, but he couldn’t _make_ this Bucky person show up.

* * *

The next Tuesday, Steve confessed that after his mother died and he got sent off to live in Montana, he hadn’t gotten in touch with Bucky, and he wondered if Bucky hated him for it.

Seriously, he said it like he was admitting to a crime. Sam told him that anyone who hated him for that was probably not worth being around, but Steve just sighed, that way he does when he’s not really listening.

* * *

“I think I found him. It’s . . . I think it was him, Sam.”

“Okay.” Sam was almost disappointed. He’d reached the point where he hoped the guy would stay gone, so Steve could let go of the whole thing. “Did you get to talk to him?”

“Not really. He just handed me the cat and I kind of panicked and left.”

Sam rubbed his forehead, but that statement didn’t make any more sense than it had before. “That one cat that Natasha talks about? Beeper?”

“Peepers. His arm was made of metal. I think . . . He must have been injured. Maybe Tony can tell me about him. That had to be Tony’s work.”

“He better fucking not,” said Sam. “This guy turns up and suddenly you don’t care about confidentiality?” 

“He was hiding in a tree,” Steve said in a low voice. “I need to know how to help him.”

“It’s not your job to save him. Just be his friend.” _If he’ll let you._

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

* * *

“Steve is totally gone for that Barnes guy,” said Natasha.

“Who?” asked Sam. In his defense, he was busy driving, and he’d never heard the guy’s last name before.

“His buddy from high school. He finally showed up in class. He looked like hell, but Steve is obviously smitten.”

Natasha enjoyed using words like ‘smitten’, which made Sam really glad that he was allowed to kiss her. “Is Steve going to be okay? We don’t need to intervene or anything, do we? I hate trying to intervene with Steve.”

“You only hate it because it never works,” said Natasha. “Barnes is Clint’s latest project, though, and Clint has good instincts.” Clint was an old friend of Natasha’s. Sam didn’t know what the exact nature of their relationship had been, and didn’t care. “Steve should be all right, if he can take things slow.”

“Never going to happen. Not unless someone puts a leash on him.”

“That’s a nice image.”

“Yes it is.”

* * *

“God, Sam, I wanted to french him right there in the library.”

“Hi, Steve. How are you?”

“Sorry. Hi, Sam, I’m fine, how are you? Good? Good. I want to put my mouth on Bucky.”

“You probably shouldn’t do that. Is he even into guys?” 

“No idea.”

“Then you definitely shouldn’t put your mouth on him.”

“I know, I know.”

* * *

“Hi, Sam. Tell me I’m not allowed to hit Tony Stark.”

“You are not allowed to hit Tony Stark,” said Sam. “Did he do something specific, or is it just his general demeanor?”

There was a long pause. “He was flirting with Bucky.” Steve at least had the good sense to be embarrassed about that.

“You don’t get to decide who flirts with Bucky. You wouldn’t even get to decide that if you were married to him, which you are definitely not.”

“I know. Just, he’s _Tony_.” 

Sam did know. Tony was hot, brilliant, rich, famous, and an asshole, and he flirted with Natasha all the damned time. Sam didn’t worry about it, but it was still annoying.

Steve said, “Doesn’t matter anyway, I think he might have a boyfriend.”

“That would be a good reason not to get overly invested with him.”

Steve just sighed.

* * *

Natasha was right, Bucky Barnes looked like hell.

The kind of hell that encouraged people to make deals with the devil.

He stood at the back of Sam’s meeting, next to Natasha, and Sam watched him eat a doughnut and understood a little better why Steve was falling so fast. Damn.

* * *

“I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed him. Is that weird?”

“Probably,” said Sam.

“Shut up.”

Sam laughed. “Hey, you called me.”

“We talked about what Hogwarts houses we’d be in.”

“That’s embarrassing.”

“No, it wasn’t. That’s just it. He gave this great speech about Slytherin house, and I called him a Ravenclaw and he called me a Gryffindor. He’s so easy to talk to. He’s smart and funny and I am in so much trouble. God, I _like_ him.”

“I thought you might. Did you ever find out if he has a boyfriend?”

“I didn’t ask. He is into guys, though. He liked Spike, from Buffy.”

“If you’re getting jealous of fictional characters, you might be in too deep.”

“Yeah, well, I’m also jealous that someone fed him doughnuts today.”

“Tell me that’s a joke.”

“Yes, it’s a joke. Jeez.”

“Good. Somebody needs to look out for _you_ in all this, and you’re obviously not going to do it for yourself.”

“I promise, I’ll take it easy.”

“Right.”

* * *

“Here, take a picture of my hair,” said Natasha, handing Sam her phone.

Sam took the picture, then asked, “Why?”

She took her phone back and opened a text for him to read. _Hey guys, text Bucky so he can have your info._ There was a phone number at the bottom, presumably Bucky’s.

“I wonder what prompted that,” said Sam.

“Clint’s out of town. Maybe Barnes needed a favor.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

A few minutes later, Natasha got another text. She looked up at Sam. “Wherever Bucky is, he’s with Steve. Look.”

The text was a picture of shiny metal plates and bands.

“That’s Bucky’s arm,” Natasha explained. “But Steve definitely took the picture.”

“How can you tell?”

She shrugged. “That’s how he sees things. It’s not that he ignores the bad parts, he just knows how to focus on the good.”

“How long until they start dating?”

“I give it a week, tops. They’ll be living together within a month.”

“Even Steve has more restraint than that. Two months, at least.”

“You’re on. Winner does the dishes for two weeks.”

“All right.”

* * *

As soon as Sam picked up the phone, Steve said, “He doesn’t have a boyfriend. Hopefully I can change that, though.”

“Well, good for you, for finally asking.”

There was silence on the line. 

“You did ask him, right?”

“Um, I sort of kissed him, instead,” said Steve, and he rushed on with, “It was an accident, I was mostly asleep. For the first one. We were both awake for the second one, though.”

“Jesus, Steve.”

“I know, I know. I apologized, but then he said I should kiss him again, so I asked him out.”

“And this was after you slept with him?”

“Not _slept with_ , slept with. We were watching tv and we fell asleep on the couch. And then I woke up, and . . . In my defence, he smells really good.”

“Oh, well in that case . . .”

“Look, I have a plan, okay? I’m not going to rush things. I asked him on a date. He said yes. I didn’t tell him I loved him or anything.”

“I should fucking hope not.”

“I don’t know, being in love doesn’t seem so awful, to me.”

Steve had never even hinted that he loved anyone, before. He’d say he liked someone, he’d go on about how nice they were, he’d spin romantic fantasies around them, but love was not a word he threw around.

Sam wanted to say something, but he didn’t have any wisdom to offer. He loved Natasha, sure, loved her in a way that was fierce and steady and inexplicable, which was exactly why he couldn’t help Steve. What he had with Natasha wouldn’t make sense to anyone else, just like whatever Steve was building with Bucky didn’t make sense to Sam. Love can only be understood from the inside out.

Finally, he said, “Barnes must be a hell of a guy, to get you talking like that.”

“He is. He always has been. Did I tell you about the time he almost got suspended --”

There was the beep of an incoming call. “Sorry, man, that’s Natasha. You want me to call you back, after?”

“No, I’ve got meetings to go to. And a date. Catch you later.”

* * *

Sam drove carefully to the hospital, because the temptation to blow through stoplights and pass cars on the sidewalk was nearly overwhelming.

Natasha was tough. Very tough. It was reassuring, except Sam knew it also meant that injuries she thought were minor, Sam . . . didn’t. So he wouldn’t know how bad off she was until he got to her.

As soon as he entered the ER waiting room, a voice said, “She’s good, Sam. Just a sprain.”

It was Clint. He’d been propped in a little corner, hidden by a check-in kiosk thing.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure, but they’re doing the x-rays now, so you’ll be sure soon, too.”

“All right. Thanks.”

They stood in silence for a long time.

“Hey, do you know Steve Rogers?” Clint asked.

“Yeah, we’re friends.”

“A friend of mine is kind of hung up on him.”

“Barnes?”

“Yeah. Is he going to be okay?”

“Natasha says they’ll be living together within a month, and she’s not wrong. I’m going to lose that bet,” Sam said, trying to see her through the doors.

Clint looked thoughtful for a moment. “You ever have one of those moments where someone hands you a box that holds everything you own?”

“I have.” That was not a good memory.

“Well, in Bucky’s box there were some clothes, his laptop, and two books. One of the books had a bookmark in it. Just a torn off piece of paper, you know? Except it was a picture from an old yearbook. ‘Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes.’ That was the only thing he had in the world that was _his_. So, is he going to be okay?”

Sam actually looked at Clint. “I trust exactly two people in the world unconditionally. And Steve Rogers is the other one. He will never do wrong by your guy.”

“Good. Glad to hear it.” They were quiet for a moment. “The first one is Natasha, right?”

“Of course it --”

“Well I don’t know, could have been your mom, or --”

“My mom? What? No. I love her, but I’m pretty sure that dog we had didn’t _actually_ go to live on a farm upstate.”

Clint grinned. “Doesn’t seem likely, no.”

“Aww, look at you two,” said Natasha, appearing out of nowhere in that way she does. Her arm was in a sling, but she looked whole and safe, and Sam could breathe again. “You guys up for a date tonight? I owe you for all this trouble.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Sam. “After the meeting.”

“Pizza?” said Clint.

Natasha smiled. “Pizza.”

* * *

Coffee. Coffee needed to happen. Sam stumbled into the kitchen.

Clint was standing there in his underwear, holding a mug.

Sam blinked at him. Oh, right, he’d stayed on the couch last night, because they’d been drinking.

Clint handed him the mug, and reached into the cabinet for a replacement.

“Thanks,” Sam muttered. When he’d finished about half the cup, he finally had the brain capacity to look around the kitchen. It was spotless. “You made coffee _and_ did the dishes? Will you marry me?”

Clint chuckled. “I’m pretty sure Nat would murder us both if we did that.”

“Nah, we’d just marry her, too. Then she’d have to let us live. Anyway, thanks. You must have stayed up all night doing this.”

“Ahh, I wasn’t going to be able to sleep, so . . . It helps to do something useful, I guess.”

“Hey, if you want more to do, I could make pancakes. Plenty of dishes to wash from that.”

“Yeah, sure. Pancakes would --” Clint was cut off by some obnoxious Fall Out Boy song suddenly playing in the living room. “Shit, that’s Bucky’s ringtone.”

While Clint ran off to find his phone, Sam pulled out bowls and ingredients to start on the pancakes.

“You actually slept last night, right?” said Clint as he came back into the kitchen. “Read that and tell me if it makes any sense.”

Sam took the phone Clint was holding out and read the text. _Come to dinner tomorrow. I live with Steve now. No buttons allowed._

“Uh, no, that really doesn’t --”

“Steve is texting you,” Natasha mumbled from the doorway. “Make him stop.” She shuffled to the coffeepot and grabbed a mug, letting Sam’s phone clatter on the counter.

The texts from Steve said, _I have news_ and _Can you guys come to dinner tomorrow? We have a dress code, so call me back_

“They’re not really moving in together already,” Sam said.

“Why not?” asked Natasha, probably more awake than she seemed.

“It’s awfully damned fast.”

“Says the guy who proposed to me this morning,” said Clint.

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “We’re marrying Clint?”

“He does dishes.”

“Oh. Cool. Maybe Bucky does dishes.”

“Probably only for Steve,” said Clint.

“Good thing, since that’s who he’s moving in with.”

“I’m calling Steve,” said Sam, dialing the phone.

Steve answered, “Uhh, hi Sam.”

“Hi. Clint says Bucky is moving in with you?”

Muffled in the background, he heard Steve say (“When did you tell Clint?”) and Bucky say, (“When did Clint tell Sam?”)

“He’s here in my kitchen,” Sam said in a rush, trying to get back to the life changing event they were supposed to be talking about.

“Did he spend the night with you?” Steve said, and in the back, Bucky said (“Natasha will kill them.”)

“No. I mean, yes, he spent the night, but I don’t think he got any sleep. Did Bucky move --”

“Didn’t get any sleep, huh?” 

(“Ha ha ha, Jesus Christ.”)

“We’re marrying Clint!” Natasha shouted. “Be nice, or you’ll have to wear the bad bridesmaid suits.”

“I -- What?” said Steve.

“Did Bucky move in with you?” Sam finally got out.

“Yes. He’s mine. I’m his. Get over it.” 

(“Aww.”)

And that was the sound of kissing. Okay then. “Wait. Wait. Tell me about the dinner thing.” 

“Oh! Yeah. The, um, hang on a sec. (I can’t talk when you do that.)”

(“Then stop talking.”)

(“I will, just . . . oh god, just give me one minute, okay? Mmmf.”)

“Guys!”

“Tomorrow. Seven o’clock. No buttons.”

The phone hung up.

“Dammit, couldn’t they have at least waited until after Clint did the pancake dishes?”

Natasha laughed and laughed.


End file.
